Stay Away, I Have Dirty Socks
by currentlydaydreaming7
Summary: Getting into Gryffindor was effortless. Proving herself will be a wee bit more difficult. The war over blood brewing slowly in the wizarding world has crept into the walls of Hogwarts. Fortunately, Taiga Pierce was never one to back down from a challenge, whether it be future Death Eaters, her womanizing excuse of a father, or an equally infuriating threat to peace named Black.
1. Brave

Rated M for innuendos and implied sexual content. I'm just going to stay safe *shrug* First Harry Potter story, so any feedback is welcome. I want to know what I am doing wrong or right. (I'm begging you)

**DIS-FREAKING-CLAIMER: ** I obviously don't own anything you recognize.

'_Why the hell is it so cold in here?'_

_She squinted in the darkness of her own room, barely making out the posters of her Chudley Canons posters and the photos of her friends dotting the wall across her bed, which, she noticed was way too small for her. Her dirty white socks were sticking over the end of the bed. Strange. There was hardly any moonlight streaming through the dark red curtains, the color of which gave the room an eerie feeling. The only light in the room was tinted a faded blood red._

'_What the hell was I thinking when I got that col-'_

_Her thoughts are rudely interrupted by screaming from downstairs. One voice, feminine and hysterical, sounded shaky and on the verge of a breakdown. This voice was doing most of the yelling. The other was hardly making any input, the calm and borderline bored voice was infrequently slurring out loud utterances that were clearly taking the defense. The speech from this obviously drunk person was masculine._

"_AGAIN, SHANE! YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO STOP! YOU PROMISED ME, FOR TAIGA!"_

_At the screech of her name, she was thrown out of sleepy stupor. The yelling continued as she shrugged her comforter off and threw her legs over the side of the bed, shivering internally when her feet made contact with cold wood._

"_I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU! TOO STUPID AND LAZY TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO HIDE WHAT YOU'RE DOING! I DON'T CARE IF I DON'T INTEREST YOU ANYMORE, YOU SHOULD STILL TRY TO LOVE OUR DAUGHTER! YOU BASTARD! YOU BASTARD!"_

_They couldn't have heard her padding down the stairs. The repeating sound of flesh on flesh droned every footstep out. She clenched her jaw, feeling her heart start to pound in fear and anticipation of what and who she would find. It was hard to see through the darkness and she almost all but tripped and fell down the stairs, but she caught herself and held her breath for no reason considering the one sided match was still raging at peak volume._

_She froze when she nearly reached the bottom of the stairs. There was a small figure standing just around the corner of the kitchen door where the two people were fighting – where one person was fighting with a hardly responsive drunk, that is. They were completely still, like a statue, seemingly not even breathing as they peeked around the right side of the doorway. The light from the kitchen shone on a small portion of their face._

'_That's me… what?' The child looked no older than 6 or 7, with long and unruly hair falling down their hunched-over back. She was wearing a peach nightdress and pristine white ankle socks. One small hand was gripping the doorway, shaking as if she was trying to rip the part under her hand off. _

_That was the only sign that the little girl was distressed. Her pale blue eyes were hard and apathetic, clearly unimpressed if not accustomed to the scene she was secretly witnessing. _

"_O-of courssse I love Taiga! I looove both er y-you! I do! I DO! Please…gimmie another ch-chance! I promisse-"_

"_STOP LYING! You're … YOU'RE PATHETIC!"_

"_Kathy … stoop…I…I'm surry..."_

"_Yeah!?" The voice was shaking. "I'M SORRY TOO! I'M DONE!"_

_There was a crash and the sound of glass breaking. The intoxicated masculine voice was now sobbing and blubbering incoherently as quick footsteps stormed out of the room. She watched as her younger self made no move to hide or pretend like she hadn't seen the whole thing. Her eyes were bored as her mother rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, going right through the older version of herself that she couldn't see. _

_There was a lot of noise coming from the direction of her parents' room. She could hear doors slamming and zippers being undone and the done again. The man, her father, is audibly weeping in the kitchen, the sound of glass scraping across the floor was painfully loud and his continuous moans of 'I love you' and 'I'm sorry', were all slurred and accompanied by groans. _

_Taiga stayed where she was, not bothering to look up when she heard her mother barreling down the stairs, the sound of the wheels of suitcases following her. The younger Taiga, however, looked more her age in that moment than she had in entirety of the night. Her large kyanite eyes were suddenly wide and vulnerable, shaken by the sight of her mother making for the door with everything she valued._

_Except her._

"_Mama?" Little Taiga's unbelieving and fearful whimper was enough to stop Katherine in her tracks. She turned her head back so only the side of her face could be seen. Her cold gaze faltered upon seeing her daughter with tears pooling in her eyes. She was clutching her nightdress with both hands, visibly shaking while obviously trying to stay calm and unaffected._

_The corner of her mother's lip twitched. Was that pride in her eyes? _

"_Taiga." A pause. Young Taiga looks up curiously, tear tracks glistening and nose starting to run. "Don't let anyone see you as I see you now. Strength is all you have." She placed a hand on the knob of the front door of the house. "Be brave."_

_In all of three seconds, her mother was out the door, slamming it back with force that felt almost intentional. A parting command. Be strong. Be brave. Be hard. _

_There was a melancholy stillness in the house for about thirty seconds before the screaming began again. Except this time, all you could hear was "MAMA!" From both Taigas and a barely coherent "KATHERINE!" They were not answered. The house fell silent except for the sounds of a man crying. _

oOo

Thirteen year old Taiga wakes up with a start. She shifts uncomfortably in bed, popping her back. Her dirty-socked feet are tangled at the end of the sheets. She finds that even if she stretches her legs all the way, her toes don't reach the end. She's awake. Sunlight is streaming through the same curtains she had seen last night. The walls, now devoid of any pictures, are still cluttered with posters of her favorite Quidditch team. She sighs loudly, a few stray stands of amber hair blowing aimlessly and almost sadly into the air then right back down to where they previously lay across her nose.

She untangled her feet and they poked out from under the blanket, frowning when she saw how dirty the soles were, an ugly contrast to the white on the upper side of her foot.

Looking at the clock, she groaned. One day left until she would have to go back to school and learning and stupidly long essays. Going to Hogwarts was exciting and she never regretted her decision to spend the majority of the year there, but she really hated getting up early everyday only to put herself through the pain and torture that is, well, school. She cares about it way too much to really enjoy it. Not like Lily. Lily, just as smart as her, actually likes to put herself through the agonizing horror of schooling and work. Out of all of their differences, this is the one she cannot find an explanation to. Taiga knows she herself tries hard and she realizes how important it is, but that doesn't mean she has to enjoy it.

"UGH, GOD! RIGHT THERE- UGH YEAH!"

_What the literal hell. _

The sounds emitting from, she guessed, her father's bedroom, were unholy and it brought an angry flush to her face. Her father was never exactly secretive about the women he brings home, but really, he could at least soundproof the room like a respectable human being with any hint of dignity.

_Oh wait. He's not. _ She seriously contemplated barging right in and beating the daylights out of both her father and today's flavor, but she decided that it wasn't worth the brain damage and possible loss of sight. With a heavier sigh than before, she grabbed her pillow from under her head and covered her face with it, trying to drone out the moaning of whatever bimbo has been let into her house, since smothering herself without leaving a monumental suicide note was not her style, and neither was getting out of bed this early to do such a thing for the sake of heroicness.

When she heard a breathy shout of, "UGHHH ...you said" – grunt – "you had" – gasp – "a daughter?" – the most hideous howl she has ever heard – "is she into threesomes?" … she decided that her return to Hogwarts and homework sounded much better than it ever had before.


	2. Pierce Family History

Well, here is the second chapter. There is a lot of background information. I'm dealing with a lot of the past here, so that it doesn't have to be randomly explained as the story goes. Everything in the present, I promise, will be explained naturally and not piled up like this.

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Harry Potter and it's the last time I'm going to say it.

The Pierce family was an ancient pureblood line with descendants in almost every other wizarding family, purebloods and half-bloods alike. At first, their clinically insane patriarch, Alexander Pierce, had demanded that the Pierce family interbreed solely within itself. Even other pureblood families were deemed filthy and diseased, leading to isolation and eventually, interesting defects. Pierce wizards, left and right, were being born with arms coming out their eye sockets and fingers replacing hair. The extreme deformities were blamed on the magic running through the family, when really the magic was only to blame for the extent of the horrible defects. Alexander Pierce, even in his old age, took up the task of ridding the world of any of these "mistakes", murdering the infants in front of their parents, cackling about purity the entire time. Up until his death, the Pierce family was both ridiculed and feared, famous for turning out hideous descendants and the merciless eradication of said newborns.

When Alexander died, there was more celebration than there was mourning. His cause of death, however, remains a mystery. Some say that a Lestrange murdered him in his sleep, and others say that a Weasley shot the death spell from the tree next to his bedroom window. All anybody knows is that since then, the deranged wizard's descendants have branched out, no longer multiplying themselves within each other. Naturally, with their growing disregard for blood and their mingling with half-bloods and sometimes muggles, the Pierce family gradually became less feared and respected by the pureblood community. They were no longer invited to grand balls, and when a dark wizard, Voldemort, arose to eliminate all impure blood, the Pierce family was not contacted. At least, not as the turmoil was beginning.

oOo

Shane Abbot was an 18 year old half-blood when he met Katherine Pierce. They were fire and ice, a horrible match in anyone eyes. Shane, a devilishly handsome player, was a wild extrovert, reckless and obnoxious – a Gryffindor till the end. Katherine was, for lack of a better description, a sculpture in a museum. Beautiful, emotionless, seemingly fragile but difficult to break, and stony. Her reserved, no nonsense attitude and Ravenclaw mindset immediately took a disliking to the sharp contrast posed by Shane's unrestrained personality. No conversation went civilly; every meeting always ended in a brawl, usually over Shane's womanizing tendencies.

"YOU'RE A RIGHT GIT, YOU DISGUSTING PIG! YOU CAN'T EVEN CONTROL YOURSELF WHEN FACED WITH AN ATTRACTIVE BARTENDER!"

"If anything, it proves I have a heart to love." Shane was seen smiling sheepishly, tipping his drink at Katherine in a gesture that had many other women in the vicinity swooning.

Katherine, red in the face with anger or jealously or both, had picked up her butterbeer, the insides sloshing with the infuriated trembling of her hand. "NO. IT PROVES YOU HAVE A DICK!"

Shane had slunk over to her side, the smell of alcohol on his breath and a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Now, Kathy-bear, don't try to tell me you haven't noticed that for yourself by now, or that you don't think about it at night when you-"

Shane was left groaning on the restaurant floor, wet and sticky from her drink she mercilessly poured on him, and with a large red mark on the side of his face. When Rosmerta, the beautiful bartender, came, however, he perked up and let her dote on him, pretending to be in great pain. He quickly forgot the fight, focusing on what business could be done tonight with his pick of any woman at the bar.

Shane and Katherine despised each other. Or at least, Katherine hated Shane for all he was worth and Shane was always willing to rile her up, no matter the consequences. Therefore, nobody understood what had happened on the night of September 3, 1959, when Katherine threated a first year, forced them to say the password to let her into the Gryffindor common room, and barged into Shane's dormitory in a fiery rage. One of his consorts had come up to her in the Great Hall as she was leaving dinner, practically throwing Shane's underwear at her face and running away, shouting apologies about how she didn't know he had a girlfriend. After a moment of bewilderment in which she was painfully aware of everyone's eyes on her, she cleared her throat and fled out of the front doors, a certain red haired prick on her death list.

Some say that one thing led to another. Others say that Katherine was flattered that Shane gave some indication they were dating. The rest all think the tension building up for the last three years has finally boiled over. The only hard fact is that on that night, a child was conceived by Shane Abbot and Katherine Pierce. Two months and a pregnancy test later, Katherine was thrown out her home and sent to Hogwarts for her last year. When she told Shane in a corner on the Hogwarts Express, he paled and asked how such a thing could happen.

"You idiot! You were there!" She hissed, her eyes cold but her tone wavering.

Shane looked close to tears. "I can't … I can't BE A FATHER! I'M SEVENTEEN!" He took Katherine by the shoulder, shaking her back and forth as she yelped in protest. "THIS _ISN'T_ HAPPENING!"

Katherine pried his hands off her shoulders and glared into his panicked cobalt eyes. "Shut up!" Shane shut his mouth, looking at her in both fear and helplessness. She sighed, her head in her hands. "Merlin, get a grip. You're missing the point! We need a plan, my parents kicked me out, and I have nowhere to go. I need to finish this year, but as the father, you will take responsibility for what you have burdened me with!"

Shane regarded her thoughtfully, which rendered Katherine speechless. "What?" She asked warily. He simply stared at her before taking a deep breath. She crossed her arms, impatient. "Spit it out, already."

He took another haggled breath before putting his hands on her shoulders. "How does getting married sound to you?" He said it all in a rush, afraid of her reaction. To him, this seemed like the right thing to do. Of course, he was usually never right and in the end this was just another one of his rash decisions.

Katherine's face was horrified. It stayed that way even on the day of her wedding.

Soon after, Taiga Pierce was born, taking on the name of her mother, who had adamantly demanded to keep her name. She was a cute little thing, with her mother's nose and her father's copper hair. Her eyes, a pale blue, were lighter than her father's, but he proudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen that they were indeed replicas of his own. Shane was a very enthusiastic father. When Taiga was born, he was the first to hold her, laughing obnoxiously when she gripped his finger tightly. It wasn't until he really felt the lack of circulation that he tried to hand her to her mother. Katherine, however, refused. She wanted little to do with the child. After nine months of pain, in which her parents officially wrote her off, she was just happy to be rid of the burden.

Years went by quite unhappily in the Abbot-Pierce household. Never having married for love, the married between Shane and Katherine was unstable and unfaithful on Shane's end. Even with a wife and a daughter, his engaging in casual sexual affairs was rampant and constant. He often came home drunk and overly-happy, which annoyed Katherine and always began their regular fights. Little Taiga watched from the sidelines as her father cheated again and again on her mother who knew but did nothing about it besides get angry.

One night, when Taiga was six, Katherine was at her wits end trying to pay the bills, which was her responsibility, considering all Shane did was work and play, as she put it. Months prior, Katherine began noticing they were making less and less, and most of Shane's expenses were coming from either the adult store at the end of town or the stripper club she was fully aware he visited religiously. She noticed this, but she said nothing. However, that night, when Shane came home at three in the morning, she was done. She was tired and she was through with his behavior and disregard for the wellbeing of their "family." The fight woke young Taiga up, who witnessed the final crack her mother was going to bear before she packed up her stuff and left, leaving her with a final order to be what she herself could not be.

Katherine Pierce herself had never been extraordinarily brave. She never came back to face what she left behind. Instead, she occasionally sends owls to Taiga, who eagerly accepts the letters and postcards, but sadly remembers each time that she couldn't send one back even if she tried. Her owl, Minorie, might possibly find her mother, but there was no guarantee that Minorie wouldn't die of exhaustion or starvation before she even found her.

Taiga never blamed her mother for leaving. She had hated her father's cheating long before it all came to a head. As far as she knew or cared, it was her father's fault that she left. She grew cold and untrusting, always remembering her father, seeing him in every male that she saw. From a very young age she had her set opinions about men. They were all disgusting pigs, swayed by a woman's body, not ever to be trusted. It didn't help that Shane refrained from having casual affairs; to the present day he regularly brings voluptuous women home, whether Taiga is home or not. She is much like her mother when it comes to her father. She regards him coldly, but unfortunately for Shane, she also inherited his Gryffindor fire, which adds up to a ticking time bomb with a short fuse, not willing to take any nonsense. Taiga often yells at her father as if the roles were switched, she the parent and he the admonished child.

And therefore, Taiga grew up to be a completely independent person. Not many people spoke to her because she chose not to speak very much at all – she found most people distasteful and loud. Whatever friendships she had before her mother left dissipated into nothing – her apathetic attitude eventually pushed them all away. All her attention went to studying magic before she could even perform it. She taught herself everything she knew, as her father, talented auror he was, had never been the studious type. Her immersion in books often brought Taiga all the enjoyment she really needed.

When her letter to Hogwarts finally showed up when she turned eleven, she was more than ecstatic. Not only because she wanted to learn, but because she couldn't wait to get away from her pathetic and over-emotional father. She dashed through Diagon Alley with her father trailing behind her, who struggled to keep up and panicked whenever he lost sight of her. Of course, as soon as he spotted a young and well-endowed witch outside Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, he all but forgot about Taiga. Taiga did nothing but roll her pale blue orbs before she returned to getting all the supplies she needed, clutching her list to her chest as if it was the only thing precious to her in the world.

"Dirty git." She grumbled before entering Flourish & Blotts, skillfully and fluidly avoiding being trampled by a horde of other, she presumed, first year girls. They were all giggling and not-so-secretly whispering about a "Sirius Black", whoever that was. One girl appeared scared and said her parents told her to stay away from him. So apparently this Sirius Black was trouble, and Taiga wanted nothing to do with that. It reminded all too much of the idiot she was sure was still flirting outside. With a final huff, she glared into the store with a determined look in her young but hard eyes. She didn't notice the black-haired boy watching her from inside the store as he stood next to his mother, who was scanning the shelves distastefully.

She held a small fist close to her face. "Hogwarts, get ready for me!"


End file.
